Representation Flashcards
Stuart HALL: Theory of Representation
- representation is the production of meaning through language, which language defined in its broadest sense as a system of signs
- relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes
- stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits
- stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or “other”
To what extent are the representations of youth in SJ stereotypical?
Are there any particular youth stereotypes that the episode reinforce?
*consider the way in which Davis and Yorkie are represented, for example
*how are these representations constructed through particular aspects of media language?
Davis and Yorkie
- nerdy and cool
- rebellious
- shy and introverted
- try hard people to look cool
- insecure
- not trendy
- loners?: Davis trying to connect with Yorkie, but her rejecting and ignoring him
Other
- fun and reckless: reckless driving
- clubbing
- teens going through different identities (Yorkie)
To what extent are the representations of the elderly: young vs old in SJ stereotypical?
Are there any ways in which the representation of Kelly and Yorkie could be seen to challenge stereotypical views and preconceptions of the elderly?
- Kelly needs aid: can’t drive, needs to be escorted, aided by care worker
- Kelly is free, reckless and full of life in SJ; cool, trendy and extroverted, the person that everyone else wants to be
- Kelly is not fully passive as she makes decisions e.g. passing over
- Yorkie is utterly reliant as she’s stuck in a coma
- Challenges love being for the young: falling in love again when they meet as their older selves
To what extent do the representations of gender in this sequence challenge gender stereotypes and patriarchal power relations?
What do you notice about gender roles?
*Analyse the sequence where Kelly and Wes talk outside the club before Kelly meets Harvey inside (1:06:20 - 1:09:40 on the DVD)
- Kelly getting away with rejecting Wes, as if he’s inferior to her; Wes can’t control Kelly
- Proxemics: Distance between characters and kelly is in front of Wes and not looking at him, thus signifying that she refuses to give him attention and she is more dominant in there relationship
- Kelly: “What the hell?” - confrontational, informal and annoyed: challenging that women can’t be confrontational
- Kelly: “There’s plenty of other girls out there” thus not passive and desperate for a relationship
- Wes being desperate, instead of Kelly and wanting a real relationship; he’s emotionally detached
- Wes being clingy instead of Kelly
- Kelly not needing a man and being independent: self reliant
To what extent are male characters such as Wes, Harvey and Greg represented stereotypically?
Are they reduced to a few simple characteristics or traits? Do they challenge stereotypical ideas of masculinity in any way?
Wes
- Wes is stereotypically demonstrated as someone who wants to have sexual fun with women, but also challenges as he wants an emotional relationship with Kelly
- cool, trendy and expressive about what he wants from women
Greg
- stereotypical “gentleman”, who expresses this by helping Yorkie live freely in SJ, despite marriage being a prominent commitment; does it anyway
Davis
- represents the stereotypical “nerd”, who is awkward, introverted and tries his best to be cool
- struggles to fit in, like the typical teen, and doesn’t know what to do with himself
- stereotypical “odd-one-out”
Harvey
- slightly controlling
- dominant in the conversation with Kelly: women being inferior to men in having a say in conversation
bell HOOKS: Theory of FEMINISM
- feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal oppression (Does it promote male dominance and the subordination of women for example? Does it promote feminist values) and the ideology of domination
- feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle choice
- race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed - can apply to men (Intersexualism)
Does the ‘San Junipero’ episode of Black Mirror reinforce or challenge sexist/patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination?
In other words, is it a feminist or anti-feminist text?
Challenge
- Kelly dominates the relationship between her and Wes
- In SJ, no one cares about your sexual orientation and who you are attracted to; everyone has equal rights as to who can love who
- Men are always wanting the female character instead of women being desperate and clingy
- The women have lead roles: Kelly makes the decisions between her relationships with men (rejects all men e.g. not accepting Greg marrying Yorkie and her not wanting to be with Wes)
- Yorkie: Parents controlling her based of off their religious views and Yorkie breaking free from them
- Hybrid genre codes: Sci-fi (traditionally a masculine genre) and romance (traditionally a female genre)
- Factors often try to contain women’s power and agency ; we see these things being overturned in the technological utopia
- In SJ, the old and deceased can live freely without the constraints of the “real” world, as it’s policed by structures as religious belief and heteronormative relationships = Greg the fiance
- The role of men are made redundant by the role of women
- The power of state also dominates the lives of those using SJ technology, as Greg says “The state has a triple lockdown” on people wanting to pass over into SJ. State rations the amount of people who can go to SJ and it’s risky for Kelly to visit Yorkie to visit her for even 5 minutes
- Kelly: outgoing, experienced and pursues fun, which subverts the patriarchal power relations and challenges gender stereotypes. For instance, she explains to Yorkie that she likes all genders and supports “equal rights” and makes a solidary fist demonstrating a feminist position
Liesbet Van Zoonen: Theory of Feminism
- gender is constructed through discourse, and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context
- the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture
- mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.
How are the ideas about gender in Black Mirror, and what it means to be a man or woman, shaped by cultural and historical context?
Do the discourses of gender that circulate in the programme reflect the liberal values of contemporary western culture, for example?
- same sex marriage is legal
- gender equality being a mainstream idea (whereas in the western 1980s it wasn’t allowed, thus looking at this decade from a liberal, contemporary and modern ideology, thus it being transposed)
- A man is to be trendy, “in”, popular, not insecure or awkward and in the action e.g. clubbing, the “quagmire”, getting with girls and having fun
- Woman have to cater to male needs such as having sexual relationships with them, dressing in a trendy fashion and having fun, like men, such as clubbing
- To be a woman is to be carefree: Kelly advocates that Yorkie needs to have fun, be reckless and actually live life e.g. go dancing and drink alcohol
- To be a woman is to know what you want and have the ability to say “no”: Kelly said no to Wes, Harvey and Yorkie when they all wanted a relationship with her, and she was not comfortable with being emotionally attached.
- To be a man is to be considerate and caring, which is demonstrated by Greg’s kind nature towards marrying Yorkie, despite the age gap and not actually loving her
To what extent does the ‘San Junipero’ episode support van Zoonen’s claim that the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture?
Is there any difference in terms of the codes used to represent the male body compared with those used to represent the female body?
- Women wear tight fitting body in a cage, which is fetishised: supports that women are made to be looked at and desired whilst being under control and trapped
- Camera doesn’t focus on parts of a female body out of the quagmire: fighting against being sexualised and supporting feminism
- Quagmire tries to objectify and sexualise women
Judith BUTLER: Theory of Gender Performativity
- identity is performatively constructed by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results (it is manufactured through a set of acts)
- there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender
- performativity is not a singular act but a repetition and a ritual (Gender isn’t determined by your biological characteristics, but is appeared through their behaviour e.g. clothing and habits (the performative aspect)
*our gender only comes into being through a series of acts. It is not so much the idea that we perform certain roles; it is more the idea that the roles we perform produce us.
In what ways could the montage in which Yorkie tries out different ‘looks’ be seen to support Butler’s theory of gender performativity?
Does the way in which the montage ends undermine or contradict Butler’s theory in any way?
- Different types of women that Yorkie tries to explore in order to find herself
- Tries to act out different versions of being a “feminine” through her clothes and the music in the background (Looks are intertextual references to fashion from the 80s e.g. Addicted to love music video and breakfast club frilly pink dress)
- At the end, Yorkie becomes herself in the fact that she doesn’t need to be defined in the other types of versions of femininity
- Rejects the performative nature of gender
To what extent does the representation of other characters such as Harvey and Kelly support Butler’s theory of gender performativity?
In what ways could their identities be seen as performatively constructed?
Kelly
- Goes against the feminine expectation of loving a man and embraces loving all genders; women aren’t always meant to love men
- Very performative as she knows female dance moves, fashion and flare whilst being an assertive female
Harvey
- His posture (spreading his body out and sitting comfortably) whilst talking to Kelly is very assertive and overpowering
- He approaches Kelly and dominates their conversation; his opinion is always overriding Kelly as she doesn’t get a chance to speak and talk
- Very stereotypically masculine
To what extent does Black Mirror challenge the under-representation and misrepresentation of particular social groups (e.g. LGBTQ people or minority ethnic groups)?
*Overall, San Junipero does challenge some representation, such as empowering the LGBTQ+ community and not showcasing them as “secondary and disposable”.
*aids in encouraging the queer audience to feel comfortable in their sexuality, as they only thing that they are truly missing out on (when not “coming out”) is happiness and joy of being true to yourself.
*Kelly could be identified as a Tokenism, due to the fact that there are no other non-white communities being showcased, thus, the episode not being fully inclusive and diverse, which may come across as people of colour being “secondary and disposable” instead.
- No other races, only Kelly (Not that racially diverse: tokenism as there’s no other representation of black women)
- Race doesn’t exclude their love
- Embraces LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ relationships
- Instead of “burying your gay”, such as Yorkie being unsure at first with being with Kelly, as she’s never been with a woman and using Greg as an excuse to hide it, she ends up embracing it and fully accepting her sexuality especially after Kelly is open about being bisexual.
- Kelly is never unhappy about her sexuality and actually empowers it; she is not seen as insecure or embarrassed about it, thus encouraging other queers to alow themselves to be comfortable and become inspired, or encouraged, by her empowering queer nature.
- Yorkie: her lesbianism causes suffering and near-death due to car accident
- Interracial, gay relationship flourishes as characters overcome religious forces of the real world
In what ways can social and cultural context be seen to influence the representations in SJ?
- Consider the representation of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage
- gives audience a view of the 1980s from the more liberal perspective of contemporary western values: SJ aired in 2016, which was not long after same-sex marriage was made legal across the USA
- dancing in tuckers: Yorkie fearing judgement, hostility if she dances with Kelly
- they overcome heteronormative and religious oppositions of society
- in real life, Kelly did not act on any of the crushes that she had in real life as society wouldn’t have tolerated with that
- outside Tuckers: Yorkie explains the prejudice she experienced in the real world with her parents
